Bridges
by Wicked R
Summary: early Season 7. Leo seems to be more stable, but he still spends
1. Default Chapter

Title: Bridges  
Author: Wicked R  
Disclaimers: characters and the universe belongs to the WB.  
Genre: Romance/Supernatural

Rating: PG.  
Summary/Set: early Season 7. Leo seems to be more stable, but he still spends

a lot of time in unknown locations. The sisters wonder where and why.

Pairing: L/Piper, C/Phoebe.

"That was easy," Phoebe sighed, referring to the vanquishing of Clisthert, a demon that played changing day to night and night to day while confusing the heck out of people and security cameras, robbing banks and allowing for the free operation of vampires, "now that the power of three is no longer required, can I go back to my column?" Just a few days back at her old job at the Bay Mirror, she was fanatical about writing articles that equalled, if not exceeded the high standards imposed by Lesley. She ran up the stairs into her room, leaving her two sisters in the hall.

"Straightforward, just like in the old days," Piper agreed with her, "when we don't have the distraction of kids hanging off the chandeliers," she complained. Although she loved being a mother and taking care of Wyatt and Christopher, it proved to be very probing with the supernatural activity around that sometimes also required her full attention the same time as the kids did.

"Well, at least Leo seems to be more relaxed nowadays, if you know what I mean," Paige tried to lighten her sister up, "he give me a pep talk and everything this morning. He acted almost normal. No staring away, no vanishing at unexpected times."

"Hmm, yeah, strange. Last night he played with the kids and then he wanted us to have uhm, you know what. For the first time since he killed the first elder. And he volunteered to take care of the kids today. But it's still disturbing I don't know where he spends most of his time at. I know it was always like that, but back then he was a white lighter and nothing more. Speaking of…where is he now? Can you sense him? I need to put the kids to bed."

Paige closed her eyes only for a second before she concluded, "underworld," she shrugged apologetically, knowing how much her sister disliked Leo taking the children down under on his demon hunts or whatever he was doing down there so often nowadays.

"Take me," Piper asked Paige crossly, ready for another dispute with her husband.

The sisters materialised in what appeared to be one of the smaller caves below, strangely lit more so by a white light source, rather than the usual red. They could immediately see Leo sitting in the lotus position on a fur rug, reacting alarmed at the arrival of his ex charges and standing up to meet them.

Piper looked around for her sons and spotted them at the other side of the cave. Chris was giggling, amazed by watching Wyatt juggling with half a dozen small ping pong ball size fire balls, while sending another with the movement of her eyes towards a row of toy cars and toppling them over. Baby Chris giggled again.

"Well done, Wyatt. Are you ready to control another one at the same time?" A familiar voice asked and the tall, dark haired, wide shouldered man that stood with his back to them conjured up and handed another little fire ball to Wyatt.

"Wyatt! Come here! Right now!" The worried mother of the two kids called, running towards them and picking up Christopher's seat on her way to Wyatt. She didn't waste time with looking for explanations from Leo. Whatever it was, Wyatt was not to play with fireballs.

Acknowledging her presence and reaction, the man that played with Wyatt extended his hands in the direction of the mini fireballs, made a gesture similar to a clap and the fireballs went out. Then he turned to face Piper, his greenish blue eyes making contact with hers. This was the moment when Piper realised she was facing her ex brother in law, the allegedly vanquished Cole Turner. He was simply dressed in a black denim outfit, his shirt half customarily unbuttoned to compensate for the heat and humidity that characterised the Underworld.

Piper stood in front of Christopher's seat in protection and cradled Wyatt up into her arms, even if Leo's calm spoke of no danger. She certainly didn't trust Phoebe's ex, and lately she had problems trusting her own husband. She never doubted he was still good, but she was seriously questioning Leo's mental state.

The boy protested being taken away from the game he was playing, "'ole is fun," and he struggled against his mother to be allowed down. Wyatt had only mastered a dozen words so far and Piper couldn't believe the word Cole was one of them. How could he learn that?

"You come here a lot?" Piper addressed her question towards Leo, or Wyatt even, or whoever was willing to answer.

"Cole helped me the last few month," Leo stepped closer for the explanations, before Piper could blow either of them up driven by her anger. Although his wife couldn't really kill or even hurt him or Cole, blowing up was always blindingly painful and to be avoided at all costs, "he helped me understand the world, helped me concentrate and take care of the kids…" Leo knew he struck a sore point as soon as he uttered the word kids and he was immediately punished by the very thing he was trying to avoid, being blown up.

"I thought we vanquished you. Especially me," Paige addressed Cole while Leo was busy with re materialising.

"Yes, in an alternate reality I created," Cole answered her question, "as I explained it to Leo, I am an Avatar, though I wouldn't be proud of calling myself that nowadays. Avatars exist outside time and space, but can choose to live in one or another interval. You vanquished Balthazar in a dimension that he was never stripped of his powers. All right, I don't exist in that dimension, but that has no effect on this one."

"Why didn't you pester us some more than?" Piper put her thoughts into words, "did you finally give up on Phoebe?"

"I wouldn't say it that way. Let just say I couldn't take her rejection anymore. All this rubbish about good against evil, evil against good, prejudices. Then finally the Avatars showed me that there was something above that fight. Such power that doesn't trouble itself with trivial matters such as good and evil."

"Objection, if I may," Paige protested making reference to Cole's lawyer past, "we met some Avatars lately. In our conception, they were very much vile."

"That is what I was referring to when I was saying I wasn't proud of who I am," Cole sighed, briefly wondering if he ever was in his complicated existence, "due to the shrinking of the Universe, Avatars have lost some of their omnipotence and were forced to recruit some people that weren't ready to manage such power and misused it. That is why it would be so important for us if Leo joined us. It's s my assignment to get him ready. I couldn't refuse, if the collective mind finds me the most suitable, the most logical action will follow. Believe me, I didn't want this assignment. I'd like to think of Leo as a friend, but we all know what complications my presence could cause. That is why we thought keeping our alliance secret was the best option."

"Whatever," Piper took the position of the head of the family again, "everybody home, will discuss it there," she urged Paige to orb them out taking position with the kids. Leo had no choice but to follow, sharing only one fleeting look with Cole. He didn't have to explain, all was understood.

Landing in the sitting room, Paige expressed the most pressing question on her mind, "Cole is back. How are we going to tell Phoebe?"


	2. For the Sake of Confusion

Chapter 2: Confusion Starts Here

"Omnipotence? God?" Phoebe yelled anxiously as the news had the expected effect on her, "not only he's back, but he calls the shots?"

"All the Elders trust him, I can assure you of that," Leo tried to clarify everything for the sisters, "you'll just need to have faith in him as well. Or at least that the Council ultimately makes good decisions if we see the big picture. The plan is, that the Avatars will recruit enough new people to be able to drive out the ones that cause the trouble."

"I can't believe this!" That was all that Phoebe could manage. As she plumped herself down the sofa, she knew that there was only one good answer. Either the Elders' Council was wrong, or she was for not giving Cole another chance. It was a decision she took two years ago and she left it all behind by now, not thinking about it every day as she used to. Cole had all those demonic powers he didn't know how to control. Exactly the same thing he was talking about in connection with the evil Avatars now. And he wasn't one of them? That still had to be seen as far as she was concerned.

"And you wanna say that until this initiation ceremony of you being admitted amongst the Avatars takes place, you will be down there spending ages with Cole and taking my kids with you? Why is he down there anyway? If he is so holy as he makes out himself to be, why isn't he I don't know somewhere above?"

"The kids love it down there for one, but if you don't want me, I won't take them.

Why is here there? He feels comfortable where he grew up. Secondly, Cole says I'm as ready as I'm ever gonna be. I don't have to go down there for that reason anymore."

"But some other reason? For example, far from me to be discontented with your recent lack of obsession with Barbas, but what about him? He's still the killer of your son."

"No, he isn't. Avatars can't use their powers for personal vendetta, so I had to get him before I became one."

"You got him?" Piper and Paige jumped at him at the same time with Phoebe still deep in thought on the sofa.

"When? And when were you gonna share that information with us?" Piper was fuming.

"I couldn't. Not before the initiation. If I did, you were going to find out about Cole. We weren't careful now for you not to find us, because my initiation is imminent anyway. You were meant to find out soon."

"He did it? Cole? The killing?" Phoebe looked up, "mention have somebody killed and he will be the one," this sounded like old times, "you just said Avatars don't do vendetta. Forgot Cole had some personal issues with Barbas himself?"

"It was an agreement between me and the Avatar collective mind. Cole just sent the eradicator beam."

"Eradicator beam?"

"Yes. You need to know he can do that anytime. With any living or dead entity. And he didn't. Not until the agreement."

"Does that mean you will be able to kill anything that moves or not moves as well?" Piper was concerned. It would make it easy to vanquish demons, but you really needed a sound mind to be trusted possessing such power.

"Yes. But…I wouldn't be able to be around much."

"Uh, yeah? Why? You are around much nowadays?"

"No, I mean even less. Avatars don't concern themselves with the lives of mere mortals. Wouldn't be allowed to influence our lives much, who lives or dies. Avatars are the creators, not the executors. That's too much like getting their hands dirty. They only got involved now because their own made some mistakes."

"Now I'm a mere mortal to you," Piper only heard what really concerned her.

"Not at all, you know that Piper. You never were anything close to mere to me. I love you," Leo stepped closer to his wife.

Piper allowed him to slowly take her into a hug, but didn't return the gesture, "you wanna play God?"

"No, no, no, I should've started with the end, not the beginning. You don't have to stay an Avatar. Once they got rid of the people they wanted to get rid of, they can take my powers away as well and I would return. That is my plan. We discussed this with them. Ready when you are. When you find out, I'll go do the job and I'll be back in no time. Actually, there shouldn't pass much real time in this dimension until I'll actually be back and for a while, we won't have to worry about many threats. Of course, the demon world will compensate soon, but…"

"If we're ready?" Paige wanted to clarify something, "why were you trying to meditate and being helped by Cole if you are ready?"

"I just felt getting ready in the last couple of days."

"So we have no say in this?" Piper argued, "of course, why would that be any different? We never have a say with Elderish things either."

"But how do you know what Cole is telling you is the truth?" Phoebe had her own doubts as ever.

"I've seen it, I've been up, I've seen this Universe from the outside…"

"Wait a minute," the researcher got the better of Paige, "if you have been outside this Universe, what is there?"

"Another Universe, normally."

"And otherwise?"

"Well, everything is intertwined in fact. We are blissfully unaware of invisible, unseen universes hovering just above us in hyperspace. We spend our life in…"

"Later Paige, later," Piper instructed, "so when exactly will the initiation be?"

On cue, see through shadows appeared in the middle of the room and Cole materialised with two other Avatars that were unknown to the sisters. They were all wearing their customary long back and white drape like garbs.

"Now," responded to her question Cole. They encircled Leo and left the way they came without Cole truly setting an eye on Phoebe.

"What do we do now? We need to do something," Phoebe was worried.

"Paige, orb. Check with Elders," Piper gave the only idea she could think of.

-

"How is Leo?" Paige asked the next morning when Piper finally came down with the kids to give Wyatt his breakfast. Paige could hardly orb to talk to the Elders the night before, the Avatars' plans have indeed been implemented independent of the concept of time.

"He's still catatonic," Piper frowned, accustomed to the trials being a charmed one meant, "when Cole brought him back, he made it clear Leo will be like that for a few days at least. Something to do with humans or even white lighters' minds not being able to store such knowledge, not without the powers the initiation gave him. He'll be ok," Piper sounded confident peeling an orange for her older son.

"What about you Phoebe?" Her younger sister knew her mind will also be in turmoil after seeing her ex and that in such a respectable position. If everybody wasn't wrong, and that including the Elders, Phoebe had misjudged her husband. That, or the simple fact of being re sensitised was going to affect her in some way.

"Uhm…Piper? Did Cole ask about me?" Long time no see, different circumstances, whatever, she was still afraid it will all go down the same road and Cole's possessiveness of her will kick in.

Piper shook her head, "he only filled me in about how their plan worked and Leo.

And he told me to watch out for some witch in the Santa Monica area cause she descended from their ranks as well and she might be disoriented too. Paige?"

"On it," her sister orbed up the attic, but not before turning to Phoebe, "Cole could descend as well you know? You'd only have to say. When you're ready accepting him and acknowledging him."


	3. Never Say Never

Chapter 3: Never Say Never

"How do I contact an Avatar? Can you summon them or something?" Phoebe asked Leo a few days later after her ex white lighter and Piper enjoyed a short holiday away with the kids due to a complete and confusing lack of demonic activity.

"You mean Cole?" Leo flashed his old compassionate smile. It was much pleasure seeing him back at ease with the world, "you can't contact Avatars, they contact you. At least I don't know if you could. All that knowledge I was given, I remember that I once possessed that knowledge, but that's about it," he shrugged apologetically and grimaced, "but I happen to know where Cole is. He likes to spend time pretending being a mortal. We share a bond now, we always will. I could sense him. Do you want me to?" He shut his eyes without waiting for an answer, but quickly and suddenly opened them again, anxiety showing on his features.

"What is it?" Phoebe urged him.

"Uh…you know this time concept? Well, during that second while I shut my eyes Cole also sensed me looking for him, he sent his essence to meet my consciousness and we had a conversation about why I was searching for him and as a result, about

you. For the first time. He never talks about you."

"What? Whaat?" Phoebe didn't even know herself the questions she wanted answered.

"Basically, he doesn't want contact with you."

"He doesn't?" That was a striking surprise for Phoebe.

"He's not the same man you used to know, Phoebe. He's well-adjusted to immense powers, he is strong and astute, but…I think he suffered some scars in connection with your relationship that even omnipotence can't heal. Seeing you hurts him."

"He said that?"

"Yes."

"But…let's just say my doubts about him were well founded and he tricked us so many times. You know that," Phoebe defended herself, "not even now, not even after all that…am I sure he has only good in him?"

"Phoebe, nobody has only good in him. We are all sinners."

"So what do you think I should do?"

"Nothing. Unless you think you can tell him that you will never doubt him again, nothing."

-

"You wanted to talk to me," a familiar and even voice surprised Phoebe as she entered her room. Cole stood in the corner as if he just would have shimmered in, like he used to three, four years ago. He didn't change either, Avatars didn't age. The same lit up eyes, the same dynamism in his movements as he stepped closer. Only his lower lip, that usually used to either pout or crinkle into a smile when he saw her, looked strangely straight, not showing any emotion just like the rest of him."

"I thought you didn't," she tried to answer the same way, as if their encounter didn't increase her heart rate to double. She once gave everything for this man…

"I changed my mind…" They struggled with the conversation.

"Do you want me to say it, don't you? I was wrong," Phoebe said, stepping closer to him as well while remembering several similar conversations they had in the past.

"No. I don't want you to say that. Not unless you completely mean it. And you can't. I know that."

"So?"

"You wanted to talk to me, remember?"

"Ah, yes. I just…wanted to say I'm sorry," Phoebe said softly and compassionately.

Cole shivered. As an Avatar, not even change in temperature affected him much, and he knew it wasn't because of the draft that found its way through the half open window. He trembled because his heart was a piece of ice and Phoebe had suddenly warmed it up. She had shown him that his soul wasn't frozen as he pretended it to be, not really, "thank you," he whispered as the colourful images of his memories of them together filled his mind. Without really realising what he was doing, he leant over, ready to kiss her, but came to his senses at the last millisecond. He looked at Phoebe penitently. At the same time, Phoebe looked up at him and for the briefest moment their lips brushed together, only the lightest of touches, but lighting an instantaneous spark of passion in both of them. They stayed still for some time, their lips a single inch apart. Cole didn't have the courage to make another move in case Phoebe took it for him obsessing about her again, but Phoebe pressed her lips to his on her own initiative. She ran her tongue gently between his lips and they parted eagerly for her.

Phoebe didn't expect and could not understand the dizzying swirl of emotion that send her head spinning and broke the kiss so that she could set her thoughts in order.

Cole waited patiently for a reaction, this was, as it always has been between them, Phoebe's call.

Phoebe exhaled noisily. While she had known how intensely she had once loved him, she realised only now that she was, in fact, still in love with him, she only waited for an opportunity to allow herself that feeling. It was her strong witches' ethical principles that stopped her from feeling. Having assumed that Cole would remain evil

all his existence she never had to truly consider her feelings and giving them the benefit of the doubt. She also realised that she should have known that her feelings for Cole were stronger than anything else she had ever felt. And if it was so, she will have to make it up to him for not supporting him, for not believing him sooner. How could he still love her when they both betrayed each other so many times? She ran one hand up his hand and shoulders until she reached his face. She tilted his head slightly before claiming him in a kiss as fiery as it was gentle.

Cole ended the kiss, suddenly jerking away and Phoebe felt him tremble in her arms. As he pulled back he only wanted to grab her and stay locked with her forever, or, at least, for some more time, but he had to remain realistic, "is this really true? Can I believe it, Phoebe?"

"Yes," sounded the honest and in the ex demon's view well overdue answer, "come back to me Cole."

The End.


End file.
